Dining in style on the road less traveled

I was in a foreign city, watching TV with some friends I'd made there. We'd gone through the channels and had stopped at one that was showing a movie. After a few minutes, a girl in the group said, "This must be a French film. All they're doing is talking and eating."

She was right. "If it were an American film, they'd be driving all the time," she added.

I'm glad she didn't say "they'd be swearing and shooting at people" — not everything is like it is in the movies. But you really can tell what's important about a culture through its cinema. Hollywood has made so many road movies because most Americans can relate to long car trips.

A simple activity like visiting relatives can mean a drive of several hours, or for many people even a flight or two. It's not an easy task when small children are involved. But when I was a small child, I didn't mind: it was an exotic experience. The landscape, weather and foliage changed before our eyes as we left the city of Pittsburgh to drive towards the mountains of central Pennsylvania. And that was just the direct route. Those rare occasions when I could talk my parents into taking the longer "scenic route" are treasured memories of covered bridges, narrow roads, hairpin curves, railroad lore and stops for food in unusual places.

Since then, the expressways have been greatly extended, and the experience of being "on the road" has largely become standardized and generic. Familiar chain restaurants, clustered together at highway exits, offer the same pizza, steaks and chicken as in the cities. The food served along the back roads, however, is much closer to what people eat in their own homes. Here's a tip: if you really want to learn about America, find the smallest town that has a family-owned restaurant.

It doesn't matter what time of day it is: you can always order things that you'd rarely find in a city restaurant. For breakfast, have some grits or oatmeal along with your eggs and bottomless cup of coffee. Lunch or dinner might be a hot sandwich of cooked meat and cheese, taking up half your plate, with a pile of onion rings next to it. In the Northeast, coleslaw comes with everything, thanks to all the German immigrants — and everyone has a different recipe for it. Try the creamed corn as well, especially toward the end of summer, when the corn is fresh.

Truly authentic country restaurants will even offer liver and meat loaf — dishes that people make at home in order to save money. A more sophisticated alternative would be tuna salad, a spread that's found in sandwiches. Baked beans are a common side dish.

Instead of Coca-Cola or its competitor Pepsi, you might have to order a more exotic soft drink like RC Cola, Dr Pepper, or Mr. Pibb — or go with lemonade (particularly on hot days) or root beer, a traditional nonalcoholic drink made from tree leaves.

The best, of course, is saved for last. In the countryside, you'll find pies galore, but which ones you'll find will depend on the season: cherry, blueberry, apple and pumpkin pie are good bets. In a small enough town, you'll also find Jell-O desserts — bits of fruit floating in colored gelatin, topped with whipped cream.

In 1916, when the age of road trips was just beginning, American poet Robert Frost wrote:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

In culinary terms, it still does.